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Yippee!! Solved it.
After throwing in the towel several times yesterday I adopted a new approach this morning and solved it almost immediately. I used a different online decrypter and changed my choice of the RC,RR,CR,CC options that I had stubbornly been sticking with. At least I had some light relief yesterday with the I.

Jordan, what? is eh?

ooof this is heavy going... i have nearly all the down answers but missing a lot of acrosses, which still need a lot of cold solving effectively as they're jumbles crossing jumbles :(

I am really struggling here with a number of answers which I cannot justify - and I am also having problems with the jumbles. So I would appreciate any hints on the following

9a. I have a perfectly good solution which seems obvious, but the second word in the clue is redundant

16a Still cannot see this, despite various hints.

22a There is an obvious answer here, and it would fit the comment in the third sentence of preamble - but I cannot see a consistent way of entering this.

12d I think I have the answer, but I cannot see the wordplay.

21d I can deal with everything apart from the last word in the clue.

Foinhaven,

9a - The answer is not a flower in itself, but does grow them
16a - Think Nobles
22a - I'm guessing you have something wrong as the entry is unambiguous. The answer has no repeat letters.
12d - there is an extra letter in this, which when removed indicates how the wordplay woks
21d - this indicates what is replaced by the initial cryptic indicator

Foinaven,

9a , think of the second word as that which produces the flower. It's surface again.

16a, start with a loose word for business leaders that can also refer to nobility.

22a is not one of the clues referred to in the third sentence of the preamble.

12d remove a letter from the fourth word and you might see the wordplay

21d the last word in the clue is the usual one-letter abb. which is replaced by something else in a word for china. Letter needs to be removed from second word

Miraculously, I have now solved all the clues and have a full grid (with expected ambiguities).

I had a look at the cipher and made a bold assumption about what the plain text might have been. weirdly, part of it seems to encode to the bottom section of the encoded block, but the top of the block isn't right. Not sure how on earth I've made that happen. This is all without having a clue about the cipher key.

I feel so near, and yet so far...

Kindred, my post @ 39 may help.

Interesting coincidence? In the absence of a title, just wondering if the editors chose to issue this puzzle with this number 4747? If so, nice one.

Thank you both for the hints. In 22d I had china as pal, replacing the intended letters to produce a quite sensible word which was entirely irrelevant!